Friday's B*ll*x

[blue wine]

that wag makes me a big boy!

[Ted Hughes]

Jose Mourinho set to be at centre of summer tug-of-war between Manchester City and Real Madrid

Real's 1-0 Champions League defeat in Lyon has increased the pressure on Manuel Pellegrini, and sources in Spain claim the Spanish club received a positive response when Mourinho's representatives were approached.
The Special One: Jose Mourinho could leave Inter this summer
Mourinho has three years to run on his Inter Milan contract but this can be terminated for £6m during the summer.
Roberto Mancini's agreement with City stipulates a get-out clause after six months and after a bright start as Mark Hughes' successor the Italian is struggling to maintain that early momentum.
Mourinho has made no secret that he would like to return to English football but the prospect of winning a title in a fourth country may sway the Portuguese towards Madrid.

So, loads of people want change in summer and most name Mourinho as Mancini's successor. What if he prefers Real? Who then?

That's the problem when you start sacking managers for no good reason, if the next one doesn't perform you often end up worse off, then you find you've won fuck all 30 odd years later. That's why I would have left the last manager in charge for several more years & would be happy to do the same with Mancini IF he starts playing football.

What if we do get Mourinho & he fails? What do we do then? Swales would know.

But that's the problem, what is good reason? I didn't rate Hughes, thought he overspent on players and had no tactical sense, hence all the draws. I understand why Mancini went defensive early on, but if he keeps it up, I'll be having serious doubts about him too. Both are just opinion and unless we find a manager who wins something, it will always be subjective about whether we are moving forwards or not and at a fast enough pace. Sticking with a manager is the right thing to do, once you find the right manager. Frank Clark wouldn't be a decent manager if he was still in charge now.

So we just keep replacing managers until we win something? Well it's worked brilliantly so far.

Imo the fact that laymen accuse people like Hughes & Mancini of not having tactical sense I find quite ridiculous. They may see it differently than we do & choose methods which with hindsight could turn out to be wrong but they lose more knowledge about football whilst farting than most of us on here have ever had & would run rings round us in a detailed discussion on those very tactics. That doesn't make them great managers but the suggestion, so often used on here, that they don't actually know what they're doing is laughable.

A good reason not to sack a manager is if he's doing ok. If he's consistantly doing very badly you sack him. In our case because of our resources, 'ok' probably means top 6 now, changing to top 4 & regular trophies in the coming years but even then you'd allow for a bad season occasionally provided the manager won trophies at other times. From a purely selfish point of view, I would rather see attacking football, so if Mancini doesn't provide it, i'd rather see him go but that's just me being selfish. If he finishes top 6, there'd be no reasonable football reason to sack him, just like there wasn't with Hughes who was on target for that.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

A good reason not to sack a manager is if he's doing ok. If he's consistantly doing very badly you sack him. In our case because of our resources, 'ok' probably means top 6 now, changing to top 4 & regular trophies in the coming years but even then you'd allow for a bad season occasionally provided the manager won trophies at other times.

I'd fully agree with that.

[Blue Since 76]

So we just keep replacing managers until we win something? Well it's worked brilliantly so far.

That's not what I said, I said that if they don't win something, it has to be a subjective opinion. Once they've won something, you can be a bit more objective, but even then it's difficult - should Rafa keep his job?

None of the managers we've got rid of have ever been a success elsewhere either, so maybe they just weren't very good. We'd need to look at our hiring policies, but not the sacking one.

Imo the fact that laymen accuse people like Hughes & Mancini of not having tactical sense I find quite ridiculous. They may see it differently than we do & choose methods which with hindsight could turn out to be wrong but they lose more knowledge about football whilst farting than most of us on here have ever had & would run rings round us in a detailed discussion on those very tactics. That doesn't make them great managers but the suggestion, so often used on here, that they don't actually know what they're doing is laughable.

If you went round the ground during a game, you'd get about 10,000 versions of what should be changed, but only one man is paid for their opinion. Hughes' tactics could be right (Chelsea), my complaint would be that if plan A wasn't working, nothing ever seemed to change. Personnel changes were usually like for like, rather than formation changing. Additionally, when we were under pressure, we wouldn't make a change until we lost a goal, which I could never understand. I'm sure if I could discuss with Hughes or any of the staff, they could explain what they had seen that I had missed, but I see no reason to put blind faith in someone unless the results prove they know what they are doing - I think Taggart is a fool for not buying in summer and having a fairly poor squad, but they're doing ok, so he's probably right. I thought Hughes was wrong over the subs and in game tactics and we had all those draws, so maybe I'm right?

A good reason not to sack a manager is if he's doing ok. If he's consistantly doing very badly you sack him. In our case because of our resources, 'ok' probably means top 6 now, changing to top 4 & regular trophies in the coming years but even then you'd allow for a bad season occasionally provided the manager won trophies at other times. From a purely selfish point of view, I would rather see attacking football, so if Mancini doesn't provide it, i'd rather see him go but that's just me being selfish. If he finishes top 6, there'd be no reasonable football reason to sack him, just like there wasn't with Hughes who was on target for that.

I'd agree that it'd be wrong to get rid of Mancini based on results, as they're not his players, however, I'd want to know what his style was before giving him time and money, as I wouldn't want to spend another £200M on the world's most defensive team. Regarding ok being top 6, I'd be disappointed if that was the real target considering the money spent. 5th within a handful of points of 4th would have been my minimum requirement

[Chinners]

NQDP and Doomy would make a suitable final I reckon

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